Twitter thrashes Facebook in Super Bowl battle of the social networks

Super Bowl XLVII was close on the pitch, but the battle of the social networks
was a walkover, with Twitter being mentioned in half of all adverts aired
during coverage on the US television network CBS.

As the Baltimore Ravens were narrowly beating the San Francisco 49ers, Twitter featured in 26 out of 52 nationally aired advertisements, while Facebook only featured in four, and Google+ was not mentioned at all.

YouTube and Instagram were mentioned once each, according to the website MarketingLand.com.

In last year’s Super Bowl, Twitter and Facebook tied with only eight mentions each out of a total of 59 advertisements.

For Twitter, the change from eight mentions to 26 represents a gain of more than 300 per cent. For Facebook, it is a 50 per cent drop.

Of all internet users worldwide, 36 per cent – an estimated 485 million - have signed up.

The number of account holders who use the microblogging site at least once a month grew 40 per cent in the second half of 2012 to 288 million, according to the internet research company Global Web Index (GWI).

This figure means Twitter - which has been valued at $9bn (£5.7bn) - is growing faster than both Facebook and Google+.

In the same period Facebook grew 33.4 per cent to 693.5 million.

Google+ grew 27.7 per cent to 343 million active monthly users.

During the Super Bowl, counting of the adverts started after kick-off and stopped when the game clock reached zero. Only nationally-sold commercials were counted, not those sold and aired by local affiliate stations. Also not included were the adverts by the NFL and by CBS promoting their own properties.